


but at least the war is over

by good_ho_mens



Series: the war is over, and we are beginning [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Resurrection, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, TommyInnit Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Tubbo is part of sbi literally fight me, Wilbur Comes Back and Fixes Everything Fight Me, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, like way so much kwejfb, they all need a hug lets be real, this is so self indulgent jesus christ, uhhh author is an everyone apologist lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/good_ho_mens/pseuds/good_ho_mens
Summary: Wilbur Soot wakes up on a Sunday
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: the war is over, and we are beginning [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138607
Comments: 58
Kudos: 466
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	1. Chapter 1

Wilbur Soot died on a Monday. 

It wasn’t a monumental Monday, as far as Monday’s go. It was sunny until it wasn’t, it rained until it stopped. 

In the grand scheme of things, there was nothing very special about that particular Monday in just another non-monumental November. 

Except, an entire country did get blown to shit. 

Most people prefer to skim over that part. 

(Most people being a vaguely gray and transparent former-president of said country, but that is besides the point.)

On this Monday that didn’t and doesn’t really matter, a man died. He was, by definition, not a good one. Though it’s important to point out that before all the mania and obsession, he was trying to be. 

His father killed him, and not because he was angry, or because he hated him, but because he loved him. 

That’s what the two of them would say, anyway. To hide guilt or hurt or anger, or all three. 

He remembers the moment, clearer than most everything. He remembers the sword, and the rubble falling around him, and his knees pressed into the ground. He remembers the sweat under his arms and across his forehead. He remembers the cold clamminess of his hands as he lifted them to cover his fathers and the hilt of the blade. He remembers hearing screaming, he remembers lips pressing to his temple and something wet and no doubt salty fall against his brow. 

He remembers clearly, though he tries not to, the sharp feeling of tragic regret, just as the lights faded. 

Ghostbur opened his eyes for the first time on a Tuesday, a day even more inconsequential than the one before it. 

He was not met with smiles or bright greetings. 

Perhaps this was because, no matter how hard he made believe, and no matter how well the others went along with it, Ghostbur never actually stopped being Wilbur. 

A soul without the ties of its more than manic brain is still the same soul. 

No one was in so much denial of it than Ghostbur, but when it doesn’t rain, the sky is blue. All he had to do was look up, and let himself drift off into the bliss of unknowing. 

(Schlatt was addicted to alcohol, Ghostbur to blue. In a way, they were both just looking to forget.)

Ghostbur opened his eyes on a Tuesday, but he never really woke up. 

In the end, or, the beginning, Tubbo was the one who set the gears in motion. 

***

Being a president is not at all a job for seventeen year old boys who have died more than your average dead person and said no less than your average unborn child. 

That being said, Tubbo did a pretty okay job. Especially when you consider his role models. 

The problem with Tubbo, is that he, unlike most of his country, is a fundamentally good person, and it is very hard to be a good person and a politician.

The Monday previously mentioned as not at all consequential was also his Inauguration Day, and the day he came close to dying, again, and the day he lost his almost big brother, and nearly his country, and saw a wither for the first time. 

(Zero out of ten, do not recommend. They will try and murder you.)

This was a good crash course for leading L’Manburg, because the months to follow just got worse. Yet through it all, like an embroidered frame on your grandmother’s wall might say, no matter how many times he failed, he kept trying. 

Tubbo’s most questionable move in all his time as Supreme Democratic Overlord of a Fake Nation, was his simple and improvised declaration of peace. 

Both because the world doesn’t work that way, and because his Vice President happened to be one Tommy Innit. 

The worse came to a crescendo when Tubbo finally had to choose between being a leader and being good. The needs of the many versus the few. A country full of people, or his best friend. 

No one ever taught Tubbo how to be a good president. The only one around to do so didn’t remember his name, some days. Tubbo did his best to steer clear, when he could. 

No one ever taught him how to be a president, no one but the mistakes of the ones before him. 

If he knew one thing, it was that war was never good, and no side ever truly won. 

So the president of L’Manburg did something none of his predecessors had ever done— he avoided a war. 

(And in doing so, did something all his predecessors had done— betrayed a friend.)

The president watched a liability leave his country with a steady gaze. A friend watched the only person left who trusted him completely disappear into the mist. 

It was harder to be good, after that. 

Tubbo, unlike Ghostbur, doesn’t think there are days that don’t matter, or shouldn’t be remembered. He keeps journals of every day of his life, writing down the most mundane thoughts and chores. 

(What he doesn’t say is that he only began keeping a journal after he became president. Wilbur and Schlatt were addicted to forgetting, whether it be history or their own minds, and Tubbo is dedicated to preserving every ugly bit of it, and himself.)

He writes down what he did, and he writes down why, and he writes that it had to be done, and he writes that he is sorry. 

He writes,  _ “If I found a genie in a bottle right this second, I  _ w _ ould wish I never became President. I would wish that we did run away back then, Tommy and me. Why is no one ever content with just being happy?” _

He writes it all, and speaks none of it. 

Tommy is gone. The walls come down. 

It was naive to think that would end it. 

Quackity is angry, and Tubbo watches him with diluted feelings of agreement. He should hate Technoblade, he should want him dead. 

Fireworks are banned in L’Manburg. Tommy wrote that law. 

Tubbo should hate Technoblade, but much like being president, no one ever taught him how. 

Still, Quackity wants Technoblade dead, and when Fundy joins the team, Tubbo puts on the uniform. Wilbur’s words from the festival echo in his mind. Words he’s scrawled into the margins of his journal over and over like a madman. 

“Is this what you want?” Techno asks him, sitting calmly in the cage with his fingers laced together. 

Tubbo thinks it’s odd that he’s the only one who’s ever asked him that. He swallows and tries to make himself sound more sure than he is, “You executed me, once.”

“That’s a yes, then,” Techno says, and he almost sounds regretful. 

It’s a  _ should,  _ Tubbo almost says. He should hate him, he should want this. He scoffs at his own naivety and turns away. 

Maybe he is just a yes man— but he feels a sense of triumph over his own role and power when Phil slips out of the ankle bracelet and escapes. 

He feels a sense of loneliness too, but there are things to do and events to plan, and Tubbo decided that it’s safer if a president doesn’t feel at all. 

_ “That was Wilbur’s downfall,” _ he writes,  _ “he cared far too deeply.” _

It’s a ridiculous entry for someone who can’t really ever stop caring, no matter how much he tries. 

It’s an ironic last entry before it all falls apart. 

What happens next is a blur, in Tubbo’s mind. The elation at the idea of finally being able to visit Tommy, to explain his choice, to apologize, to fix things. The crushing dread upon seeing the pillar built so far into the sky he can barely see the top of it. 

Technoblade. Fundy. Phil.  _ Tommy. _

In his journal he writes “lost”. 

He isn’t sure who or what he’s referring to. 

Ghostbur shows up one day, his eyes just as dull and his voice just as gravely and just as fake. 

Maybe the others can’t see it, but Tubbo has worn a different mask to every occasion, like a lonely dancer at a masquerade ball, and he knows a facade when he sees one. 

“Do you miss him?” Tubbo asks. 

Ghostbur hums, “Miss who?”

“Tommy.”

“Oh! Has he left?”

Tubbo stares at the ghost, and then shakes his head, neck jerking. “Never mind.”

“Why? Do  _ you _ miss him?”

Tubbo wants to tell him yes, that he misses Tommy more than anything, that Quackity is worried about him and Fundy has this look in his eye like he knows he’s watching the president lose his mind for the third time. 

He wants to say he misses everyone. Tommy, Wilbur, before. 

Part of him says he should just do it, because Ghostbur, being himself, will forget it in a day. Perhaps even in an hour, depending on how much Tubbo matters. 

Which, if the past is anything to go off of, isn’t a lot.

“Have you ever...” he starts slowly instead, tongue running across his teeth. Ghostbur’s head tilts, and Tubbo thinks that if he was Tommy he would shout at him. “Have you ever wondered if you could come back?”

“To L’Manburg?” Ghostbur asks cluelessly, blank. 

Tubbo sighs, his fingers tapping at his sides. “Sure. I suppose so.”

Unawares to Tubbo, when the short conversation ends, Ghostbur leaves with sharper eyes than before, and he doesn’t offer Tubbo any blue. 

There isn’t a plan, not yet, but there is an idea. 

Tubbo finds out Tommy is alive, living with Technoblade. Technoblade who killed him. There’s a spark of anger that Tubbo stamps down with his polished shoe. He deserves this. 

Tommy calls him a monster, Tubbo wonders when that happened, there are too many events to choose from. 

As Tommy leaves again, Tubbo almost follows. Almost calls out to him and says sorry. Ranboo tugs on his arm and asks him if he’s okay. 

“Yes,” Tubbo lies. 

The world blows up again, like last time, and the time before. Tommy is alive. Tubbo isn’t president anymore. He doesn’t grieve it.

(He does, however, grieve the last remnants of the family he used to have, burnt to ash.  _ Third time’s the charm, _ he writes, and turns away.)

He’s not sure when the anger starts, but it might be when he visits the old cabin in the woods, and finds it ransacked. He thinks about Wilbur, and Schlatt, and Technoblade and fireworks and every time someone told him he was doing this wrong but didn’t offer any help. He thinks about how he’s seventeen and never asked to run a country. 

The cabin is on fire when he leaves. He dusts the ash off his suit. 

***

Parallel to Tubbo, something snaps inside Ghostbur that day, and the idea pushes at his clouded mind like an alarm. 

On a very important Sunday, kneeling between a father who isn’t really a father, and a traitor who isn’t really a traitor, Wilbur Soot wakes up. 

***

Grief and one god of blood are old friends. She visits him every rainy Monday afternoon, and sits in the old red chair in his living room. 

They don’t talk often, but isn’t that what good friends are? The two of them spilling out their closest kept secrets without saying a word. 

His usually begin with “I’m sorry” and end with something like “too late”.” 

Technoblade was raised fighting, and no matter how big he talks, he knows he’ll die that way too. It’s a right of passage, for someone who holds a sword with the same familiarity as someone might carry something very dear to them. Like a child, or some potatoes. 

The point is, Technoblade knows that he is mortal, and that one day he’ll fall. He does hope, privately, in his stables where not even Phil visits, that he’ll die with a view of the stars. 

Not for any grand reason, really. Just because he thinks they’re beautiful, and if his life has to start, consist of, and end with something as ugly and raw as violence and blood, maybe he deserves to see something good, one last time. 

Sometimes Techno thinks he spends far too long pondering how he’ll die. Phil told him the same, once. He’d said,  _ “if you’re so sure you’ll die that way, maybe you should focus on living before it happens.” _

_ “Aw, come on, Phil,”  _ he’d joked with iron on his tongue,  _ “I’ve never lived a day of my life.” _

It's more likely that he just steadily exists, and doesn’t ponder the morality or humanity of who he is. 

Today, however, is a Monday. A Monday that unlike  _ that  _ Monday, is not at all important, but still feels like a punch to the gut. 

Grief sits in the red chair, retelling the script of two brothers who hadn’t been that in a very long time. 

“How many people die if I let you do this?” Techno whispers. 

Grief sneers, an echo of a ghost,  _ “When have you ever cared about your death count,  _ Blade?”

“I don’t care about mine,” Techno says to empty air. Unlike when it actually happened, he decides to finish the thought, “I care about yours.”

He lets his mind supply him with the rest of the conversation, the rest of the plan. Like maybe this Monday, unlike the one before, or the one before that, all the way to the consequential Monday that rocked the boat of his life, he’ll figure out the clue. The waver in Wilbur’s voice or nervous pull at his fingers. 

The hint he gave Technoblade that he was preparing to die. 

They created the plan carefully, intricately, to a T.

Wilbur dying, his last breath like a guttural sigh of relief, blood flowing down his shirt and his sword onto Phil’s hands— that was not part of the plan. 

Technoblade refused to even look at his father for a while after that. 

_ “Listen, Tech, he was gone. Every bit of him that we knew—“ _

_ “He was sick! He needed help, not death! What? Would you kill me if I asked you to? If I told you to put my axe through my throat would you do it?” _

_ “No!” _

_ “Then why would you—“ _

_ “I didn’t see a different option, Techno.” _

_ “Isn’t it you who’s always telling me to find one? What happened to your lines about  _ family _ Phil?” _

_ “Don’t talk to me like you haven’t done things to the people you love that you regretted the moment you made the choice.” _

There is a rocket launcher in the corner of his weaponry, collecting dust. Techno doesn’t make fireworks anymore. 

Things aren’t great with Phil, after that. But they both pretend they are, because neither of them can lose anyone else. 

It’s a Monday when Ghostbur shows his face at Techno’s house for the first time. Techno steps aside, let’s him drift through the door. 

He doesn’t give the red chair a second glance, and when he asks Techno if they’re still as close as when they were kids, he lies and says yes. 

The blood god has never been gentle, despite his calm tone and exterior. He is hard and sharp, there’s a reason he’s called the blade. 

Ghostbur treats him like he’s dulled, a child’s toy. Talks to him like he used to when they were young and stayed up all night reading old myths by torchlight. Talks to him like he’s a person. 

Techno hates it. 

“You can leave, anytime,” he tells the ghost of all the care in his heart. 

“You’re right,” Ghostbur says wistfully, “your house is far too small. I’ll build one outside! We can be neighbors.”

There is a similarity there, between this mist and his dead brother. He’s never known how to say no to either of them. 

On Monday’s, grief still visits. She’s accompanied by a real ghost now, instead of just Techno’s thoughts. 

It’s a Wednesday or Friday or something when Techno decides his house is getting way too full. He finds Tommy in his basement, looking like he’s been through hell. Techno remembers the way he stood up for Tubbo so viscously, recalls what Phil had said the president did. 

He concludes that Tommy  _ has _ been through hell, and much less begrudgingly than he pretends to be, let’s him stay. 

Still, his house is too full. 

When Phil can get away from L’Manburg, he sticks to decorating and talking to Techno exclusively. Tommy watches him with not at all disguised suspicion and anger. 

Maybe he forgave Techno for what he did to Tubbo, but he hasn’t forgiven Phil for what he did to Wilbur. 

Techno, for his part, doesn’t exactly blame him. But, like most things now, he lets Tommy feel angry for the both of them. 

At least, in public. 

(At night, Techno stares at the wall and clenches his fist. He imagines putting it through Dream’s skull. He imagines yelling at Phil until his vocal cords are gone. He imagines locking them in a room with a Wither and throwing away the key. He imagines handing Tubbo a rocket launcher and getting on his knees.)

(He imagines a lot of things, and acts on none of them.)

Techno stands on a block, and with panic in his voice, tells Tommy he can still get him home. 

Tommy looks back at him and says home was never what it was. 

This time, Techno doesn’t let Tommy feel for him. He holds his betrayal in his hand in place of the axe Tommy stole and damns them all to hell. 

It’s night again, when he realizes he never gave Tommy reason to believe this was his home, that they were more than business partners. 

It’s night again when he thinks of how Tommy still has the axe, and, against his own will, feels a swell of pride. 

It’s short lived. 

Techno has always been a short fuse, ever since he was a kid. Wilbur was calm, with an air of danger that other kids usually stayed away from. Techno was monotone and angry, tripping anyone who walked past just because he could. 

He was never a bully, nothing he did was ever truly out of malice. He never made any friends, though. 

Watching L’Manburg fall makes a laugh bubble up in his throat, watching the destruction he’s caused in the name of anarchy and the fight against corrupt governments. 

Tubbo stands on the path in front of him, no armor, just a glare and shaking hands. 

“What are you doing out here?” Techno asks before he can check himself, check what side he’s on. “You’re the president, you shouldn’t be anywhere  _ near  _ this.”

Suddenly, there’s a sword in Tubbo’s hand, tossed from somewhere in Techno’s peripheral. 

“Why do you care?” Tubbo snarls, his coat is torn. 

It’s a sight to see, the third president of L’Manburg standing in front of his tarnished nation, and for once, isn’t at fault. 

Techno doesn’t have time to dwell on it before Tommy is skidding to a stop in front of him, between him and Tubbo. A sadistic part of Techno wonders if he’s having deja vu, and this time he refuses to step in too late. 

“Techno,” Tommy greets, venom in his voice. He grips his sword tighter, shifts his stance in the way Techno taught him. 

He remembers it, rolling his eyes and telling him that with footwork like that he’d get knocked off his feet in seconds. 

Raising his own sword, Techno pauses, “Is Wil— Ghostbur safe?”

Tommy hesitates, jerks his chin like he’s going to look back at Tubbo before he thinks better of it. Then he nods, “He isn’t here.”

When Wilbur died, Tommy and Techno stopped short, their swords pressed against each other. Tommy had screamed. Techno just watched, too shocked to do anything as Phil sank to the ground with Wilbur in his arms. The whole battlefield had seemed to quiet, but Techno knew it was just the two of them that stalled. 

Wilbur was always the one to get them to stop arguing, back… before. 

Techno swipes his foot out in front of him, and Tommy’s back hits the ground. 

It’s the end of L’Manburg. And the end of something else, too, but Techno doesn’t think about that as he treks back to his house with Phil. 

At least, not until Monday. 

Ghostbur shows up, and he’s angry, and he won’t even look at Phil. Techno feels a strange mix of defense and pride over that. 

“The blue isn’t working,” he hisses, like it’s hurting him. He paces Techno’s living room, clenching his fists. “I’ve tried— I keep trying and it won’t work. It’s not helping anything, it  _ hasn’t  _ helped anything.”

Techno doesn’t even get a word in before he’s gone again, slamming the door behind him. Phil comes back that night with tired eyes and guilt written across his features. 

“I’ll be gone tomorrow,” Ghostbur says conversationally two days later, kicking his feet as his legs dangle off the roof. 

Techno grunts as he climbs up the snaking vines and plops himself down. He doesn’t say anything for a while. 

“You mean you’ll be back.”

“I’m not—“ Ghostbur sighs. “I’ll still die, in a way, I think.”

“Yeah.” Techno has never been good at goodbyes. He usually does something dramatic or violent to replace it, to keep his distance. He said goodbye to Tommy, at the community center. 

Techno hates goodbyes. 

Ghostbur’s voice is teasing, but he can hear the underlying sincerity when he asks, “Will you miss me?”

Opening his mouth, Techno almost says he’s missed  _ Wilbur _ , but then he thinks that Ghostbur is closer to the bright eyed brother he remembers growing up with than the one he watched die. 

“Yeah,” he says again. “It’s been, uh… nice.”

When he looks up, Ghostbur is watching him with a searching look. “If he comes back with any memories of being me, I hope he remembers being sorry, and wanting to make it all better.”

The blue isn’t working. That’s what he’d said. You can’t fix things with a dull smile and stained hands. 

“You’re doing this for us, aren’t you?”

“Oh, Techno,” Ghostbur says, and he sounds so close to how he did when he was alive and okay that Techno can’t help but lean in to hear him better. The ghost chuckles lightly, turns back to the horizon. “Other than the bit about blowing my own country to hell, everything I’ve ever done has been for the people I love.”

Techno wonders, sometimes, if Wilbur had some kind of idea. Some sort of notion of what was to come. Maybe he met Dream and part of him knew he had to protect his family from him. 

“You built L’Manburg for them,” he says, and it isn’t a realization but it’s a vague punch to the face. 

“Tried to, at least.”

“Sorry about that.”

“I’ve never blamed you, Technoblade.”

“Oh,” Techno responds lamely. 

It’s the last thing he ever says to Ghostbur. 

The next day, when he’s cutting down wood for a smelting shack for Phil, he runs into Tubbo. 

He sees the panic on his face, as they stare at each other. Techno’s hand inches towards the blade at his hip. 

“I was just looking for my bee,” Tubbo blurts. “She got out, I was following her. I didn’t mean to end up here.”

Techno debates telling him that maybe an ex-president should act a little more tough than that, but judging by his posture and his hair that’s been cut shorter than when they last met, he’s been told that enough. 

“Alright,” he says, and then, without thinking, “want some help?”

Tubbo’s eyes flick down to the sword, an inch away from Techno’s still ready hand, and when his eyes find Techno’s face again, his jaw is set, and his eyebrows are lowered. 

“I’m not stupid.” Tubbo snorts. “Despite what everyone thinks.”

“You did sort of let a green morph suit manipulate you into banishing your best friend.”

“And you did sort of let a president of the country you hate tell you to kill a child.”

Stalemate. Techno hides his wince. “About that—“

“Tommy misses you,” Tubbo interrupts, but his voice is still hard. “I don’t get why, but he does.”

He leaves after that, trudging through the snow in his dress shoes and thin green shirt. Techno could follow him easily, he’s sure they both know it. 

He’s sure they both know that after that last word, he won’t.

He stands in the snow and watches him disappear behind trees. 

“That went well,” he says quietly, and then glances behind him, like he’s expecting some sort of encouragement or teasing. 

But Tommy is gone, and now Ghostbur. 

Techno stands in the snow alone. 

***

Wilbur Soot wakes up on a Sunday. He sits up, eyes wide, less wild than before.

“Where’s Tommy?” he says, before anything, before anyone. 

Phil drops his hands off Wilbur’s shoulders and says, “I don’t know.”

“His house,” Eret provides. 

Wilbur nods, and stumbles out the castle gates on new, solid feet. He turns at the last second, and when Eret catches his eye, he salutes. 

It’s forgiveness, step one. 

“Tommy,” Wilbur repeats to himself, and starts walking. 

***

If Tommy had to write an essay about his experience as a twice exiled Vice President so far, his thesis would be “a steaming pile of flaming shit”. He’d probably get an A though, which is cool.

In all honesty, he’s not sure what the hell he’s doing anymore. He doesn’t have any goals, or any friends. 

He regrets it, destroying George’s house. He regrets it so much he won’t say a word against Tubbo, not even when no one is there to hear. 

He does wonder if he misses him. 

Cat plays in the background and Tommy watches the sea rise and fall, the nether portal shimmer. He wonders if this is how it felt to be Beethoven, to know there’s a beautiful world out there with beautiful people and smiles and noises that make his heart beat like it was born to, and not be able to see or hear any of it. 

Tommy finds himself thinking about it a lot. He wonders how Beethoven didn’t die of heartbreak, when his friends' faces disappeared from his memory and the music he so loved couldn’t be heard. 

He thinks he might die of heartbreak, some days. 

Tommy sits and watches the sea rise and fall every day, because that’s all there is to do. 

Get armor, throw it in the pit, try and understand if Dream is his friend, watch the sea. 

“Hey Tubbo,” he says to the compass in his hands, like maybe it’s secretly a communicator, and Tubbo will hear him all the way in L’Manburg. “I saw some bees today. I almost caught them, made some friends, you know? But I realized they’d be trapped. No one deserves to be trapped.”

Sometimes, when Dream visits and talks about Tubbo, something like anger fills him. 

Sometimes, he thinks that Tubbo is just as alone as he is. 

Ghostbur visits, asking when he’ll come back from his vacation, and Tommy misses Wilbur so much it aches. 

He’s always missed his brother, but with Ghostbur, it was almost like he was still there. Now, all Tommy can think is that if Wilbur were here, he’d protect him. 

Wilbur would protect him from all of this. Ghostbur shows up with blue rocks and dirt on his nose. Ghostbur doesn’t remember what protecting means. 

It’s been so long, Tommy thinks he’s forgotten what it feels like to be protected, too. 

“You seem sad,” Ghostbur says, frowning. 

“I am sad.”

“Have some blue!”

Anger bubbles up in Tommy’s throat and he shoves Ghostbur’s half solid hand away. “I don’t want any fucking blue.”

Ghostbur laughs at him, light and not at all burdened by this horrible, stupid world he left Tommy alone in. “Of course you do.”

Tommy takes the blue. He presses it into his palm until his hand aches. The sea rises and falls.

Standing on top of the tower he built himself, staring down at the ground and the ocean and the last remnants of his almost could have been home, Tommy feels more alone than he ever has. He looks down at the compass in his hand, the arrow pointing steadily in a direction Tommy can never walk. He loops the chain around his neck, closes his eyes and focuses on the pressure just above his heart.

“Hey Tubbo,” he whispers, imagining the face of his friend. “I just wanted to tell you that I— that I forgive you. Just promise— promise you won’t forget me.”

His foot lifts off the tower, hovering in the air. Tommy imagines he was born with wings, like his father. He imagines Phil is standing behind him, arms wrapped around his chest like he used to do when he was little, leaning down to whisper in his ear.

_ “Are you ready to fly, Tommy?” _

Tommy’s eyes snap open. The ocean roars beneath him. The compass presses against his sternum. 

Something breaks, something mends, a bird flies by, bones as brittle as his heart.

“No,” Tommy says, and he laughs. He thinks with a triumphant leap in his heart that doing this, climbing down, putting one foot in front of the other, breathing steadily, that’s how he beats Dream. That’s how he wins. 

He looks up at the sky as soon as his feet hit the level ground and shouts, loud and crowing, and he doesn’t know if the wetness on his cheeks are tears or rain. 

“I figured it out, Wilbur,” he whispers after a moment. “You always said I should think about things more, and I fucking did. I figured it out, bitch.”

He did what his heart told him to do. 

Tommy didn’t exactly mean to find Technoblade’s house, but he grins with old mischief he’d almost run out of and digs through the chests, puts a stupid looking helmet on his head for the fuck of it. Piles his arms with food and weapons and gold nuggets. He turns when someone clears their throat, Techno is standing in the doorway.

“What are you doing in my house?” Tommy asks him. Techno inhales sharply. 

Tommy is alive again.

He still misses Tubbo and L’Manburg, but it’s easier to put it to the side, living in the same house as two of his brothers. He sits with Techno on the roof one night, staring at the stars, and tells him everything Dream did.

“I won’t let him get to you,” Techno says, monotone, like it’s as easy as saying hello. Tommy had forgotten what it felt like to be protected.

When Phil comes over, laughing with Ghostbur like he’s not the one who made him forget everything, Tommy stays outside and hits stone with his picaxe until his shoulders are too sore to move.

He still misses Tubbo.

When he steps foot in L’Manburg, he laughs, sharp and loud and challenging, and Techno grins at him, tossing him a sword and ruffling his hair. Tommy spins it, locking eyes with Tubbo and trying to pretend he’s indifferent, like he hasn’t thought about him every day he was exiled.

“You’re alive?” Tubbo whispers, voice breaking. Quackity reaches out, squeezes his wrist, gives Tommy a look he can’t place and whispers something into Tubbo’s ear.

The pillar still stands in the remains of Logsteshier. Tommy resists the urge to reach up and touch the compass hidden under his shirt.

There is an anvil in a cage, the ground beneath it cracked and broken. The yellow box stood for a long time after Tubbo died. Tubbo doesn’t talk about it.

Tommy wants to ask him how he could do it, how he could subject someone to that fate, the one that he knows gives Tubbo nightmares, makes him hyperventilate in small spaces and flinch at loud noises and flashing colors. 

“You’re a monster,” is what comes out instead, and it sits heavy in his gut. Quackity lurches forward with a snarl, but Tubbo grabs his arm, holds him back. His eyes don’t leave Tommy’s. He says nothing.

He doesn’t follow, either. Tommy tries to remember the last time he did.

(Every time, every time before the wall and the first time Tubbo ever shouted at him out of malice.)

(Maybe there’s a limit, to how many times you can follow someone who wouldn’t return the favor.)

Tommy sits on his bed back at Techno’s house, stares at his hands. He thinks they should be red, he thinks they should be bloodstained. They aren’t. He grabs a rag and scrubs them raw anyway.

He stands in the remains of the community house, Techno telling him to run and Tubbo watching him, as if he barely expects him to hesitate. He throws the first punch before he even realizes what he’s doing.

Tubbo’s head snaps to the side, and when he looks back there’s blood on his lip and anger in his eyes that even despite all of this, Tommy can’t help but feel proud of.

Tubbo never gets angry. Tommy’s cheek stings with the weight of his best friends fist. 

“The discs were worth more than you  _ ever _ were!” he shouts, his voice hoarse and his mouth dry. Blood trickles from his nose and he doesn’t wipe it away, eyes widening at what he just said.

Schlatt and Wilbur were best friends, once. When did they become the people that tore their lives apart?

Techno’s words echo in his mind. History repeats itself again and again.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy says. The cycle breaks. 

They still lose, in the end. Tommy’s eyes sting as he stares at the ruins of his home, the place he made his friends in, the place he fought for, the place he died for. The last piece of Wilbur he had left. 

Tubbo puts a hand on his shoulder, his voice low, like he’s holding back tears. “We all got out, Tommy.”

“Wilbur didn’t. Schlatt didn’t.”

Tommy knows his friend, knows him better than he knows the ocean he spent hours staring at. He feels the flinch, the tremor run through Tubbo’s fingers. 

“We did,” Tubbo repeats. 

_ “If I can’t be the next Schlatt, then you can’t be the next Wilbur.” _

Tommy drops his hand over Tubbo’s, gives him a lopsided grin. “Yeah, we did.”

L’Manburg is gone. Tommy grieves it at night, when the moon is high and Ghostbur wanders, singing to himself. It’s a familiar tune, and Tommy listens to it until sleep takes him. 

During the day, they rebuild. Not the country, but themselves. Tubbo takes him to a field with dozens of bees and hands him a book, and Tommy reads through it with his heart in his throat. 

“The cabin in the woods?” he asks once he’s finished. 

Tubbo shrugs, cups a bee in his hands, doesn’t look at Tommy. “Gone.”

The last page of the book is stained with ash. Tommy wraps his arms around Tubbo’s shaking shoulders and they stay that way for hours. 

Sometimes, when he’s building or mining, and he does something cool or exceptionally idiotic, he turns to his right, like he’s about to point it out to someone who isn’t there. It takes him a moment to realize, and he turns to his left, and tells Tubbo instead. 

“You miss him,” Tubbo says more than asks one evening as they climb out of the mine with coal under their fingernails and dirt in their hair. 

Tommy shifts the sack of iron on his back. “Miss who?”

“Technoblade.”

“Oh.”

“Did he save you?”

Tommy thinks about the pillar, and the sea, and the conversation on the roof. “I saved myself. He helped, though.”

“Then I don’t blame you.”

“Really?”

“I mean, I’m still pissed as hell about the withers.”

Tommy barks a laugh, jogging a few steps to elbow Tubbo in the ribs. “Fucking idiot, Tubbo. All of us are.”

“I figured it was worth saying out loud.”

“Yeah, yeah. President Bitch.”

“Vice President Wanker.”

“Hey! What the fuck?”

“You deserved it.”

They laugh, and it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. After all, they are children, and even if they have been through wars, they have survived.

Back home, because he’s back at his  _ own _ now, bunking with Tubbo in his hut that still smells like gunpowder and sawdust, Tommy drops his bag of iron at the front step, kicks the door open with his foot. 

When Tubbo hisses his name, he stops and turns halfway, a question on the tip of his tongue. 

“Hello, Tommy,” someone says. 

The world comes to a screeching halt. 

“Wilbur?”

***

The first thing Wilbur remembers is an argument, standing in knee high grass in the place his walls used to stand. Tommy is facing him, face red, fists clenched at his sides. Wilbur remembers he wasn’t bothered. 

_ “Tommy, _ ” Ghostbur had chided softly,  _ “I’m not him, remember?” _

_ “You are!” _ Tommy shouted back, and WIlbur wishes he could step forward, put his hands on his shoulders and apologize for something that’s still lost in the haze. Alas, memories cannot be toyed with or undone, only replayed until the mind breaks with the pressure.  _ “Getting amnesia doesn’t turn you into a different person! That isn’t how it fucking works!” _

Ghostbur took a step back, the opposite of what Wilbur is begging this memory of his dead self to do, glancing behind him like he wants to run.  _ “I think I should—“ _

_ “You’re a  _ coward.”

_ “What?” _

_ “You don’t let us tell you what happened when you were alive!” _ Tommy shouted, and he almost sounds like he’s pleading now.  _ “You say you’re not him but you won’t face the things he did. You’re scared! You’re scared to admit that it was just you doing those fucking things all along!” _

_ “Tommy—“ _

_ “You don’t want to remember what you did! To L’Manburg! To your friends! To Tubbo, or to  _ me.”

Bombs. Screaming. Fireworks. Wilbur sits down heavily on a stone and puts his head in his hands. 

_ “Tubbo in a box,” _ Ghostbur said softly, and Tommy jerked like he’d been burned. 

His little brother, his responsibility, Tommy, shook his head like he didn’t expect anything different.  _ “I trusted you. You were family.” _

Wilbur remembers, remembers how Ghostbur fought the urge to tell him they still could be, that all they had to do was walk through the nice snowy plains to Techno’s house, maybe call Phil. Bring Tubbo along! He bit his lip, trying to find the right words when he could barely remember his name anymore. 

_ “Was he a coward?” _ he asked eventually.  _ “Does betraying someone make you a coward?” _

“Yes,” Wilbur whispers into his palms that aren’t stained blue.

_ “He—  _ he _ was  _ you—“ Tommy stopped, laughed hollowly.  _ “Who am I fucking kidding. You’ll forget this conversation in an hour.” _

_ “I’ll try not to.” _

_ “Liar.” _

Ghostbur knew he was right. 

Wilbur drops his hands, takes a shaking breath. He sets his jaw, the mist surrounding his mind lifting, the wild fantasies of a dramatic death beginning to seem lonely and cruel.

“I remember,” he says aloud. “I’m sorry.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Finishing something? Damn

The world has never been kind, not to Wilbur, and certainly not to his family. He remembers when he was eleven years old, coming home to find Techno on the kitchen floor, blood on his shirt that didn’t belong to him. He remembers how quickly Phil moved them, leaving everything behind.

Needless to say, you can’t run away from what’s inside you.

Techno’s hands got bloodier, and Wilbur’s mind grew scattered, stuck between wanting to protect and wanting to run. 

It’s a family curse, something that weighs heavy on all their shoulders. Death and bloodshed and never being able to stay in one place for long.

(Maybe that’s why he built L’Manburg. For something to stay.)

(Maybe that’s why he destroyed it. Because nothing ever does.)

He remembers growing up with the curse following him, hanging over his head like an omen. He used to think it meant something. He thought it meant there was a meaning for it, for him. Some great task he was meant to complete, some explanation for it all.

(Maybe that’s why he built L’manburg. For a purpose.)

(Maybe that’s why he destroyed it. Because there was never supposed to be one.)

There is no real sense to life, is what Wilbur decided the moment he came back. There’s no calendar checking off days and events up above in the great blue. There is not “greater purpose”, or something he has always been meant to do. 

Wilbur Soot died on a Monday. That doesn’t matter. He remembers everything but what does.

Wilbur walks through the mismatched halls and passageways of Tommy’s house, and he thinks it’s ugly, and he thinks it’s messy, and he thinks it’s more of a home than any of them have ever had.

There’s a picture of Tubbo on the mantel, he’s scowling at the camera, sopping wet, and in the background is Tommy, sitting on the ground with an empty bucket and laughing like there’s no tomorrow. 

They’re kids, Wilbur remembers that now. He remembers when they used to act like it, too.

There are more pictures, scattered across the walls. Wilbur in front of the L’Manburg flag, Tubbo sitting on Eret’s shoulders with his arms in the air, Tommy and Niki sitting with their feet in a pond, holding fishing rods. 

Tucked behind a swarm of frames next to the crafting table, out of sight and collecting dust, there’s a picture of Techno showing a five year old Tommy how to hold a sword.

And Wilbur, Wilbur wants to ask what happened, how it all fell so fast. Because they’re cursed, and they’re bloody, but they were always family.

He wants to ask, but he already knows the answer. He remembers it all.

At the sound of laughter outside, Wilbur turns sharply, his throat closing up. Laughing. Laughing like back when things were good and bonds weren’t fragile. The door to Tommy’s hut swings open, and someone walks inside, back to him, talking to the person following.

The back of Tommy’s head and the sound of his laugh.

Wilbur remembers, but remembering isn’t the same as seeing it in front of him.

“Tommy,” Tubbo whispers, calling his friend back.

His throat clears up just enough for him to get out a hello, and then Tommy is whirling and that’s him, that’s his little brother and his messy hair and flushed cheeks and his stupid grin that’s frozen on his face as he meets Wilbur’s eyes.

“Wilbur?”

There isn’t time for a reply before Tommy hits him, knocking the wind out of his chest (and isn’t it odd to have air in his chest?) and his arms wrap around Tommy’s shoulders and he laughs, low in his throat.

“Sorry it took me so long,” he whispers into Tommy’s hair.

“You missed so much!” Tommy says, voice muffled in his shirt. “So much has happened! It hasn’t been, you know, great, but Tubbo and I—”

Wilbur hushes him, shakes his head. “I know. I remember. Being Ghostbur, before, in Pogtopia. I remember all of it.”

The warmth of Tommy’s hug is pulled sharply away. He steps back, away from Wilbur, in front of Tubbo.

Wilbur watches Tubbo’s hand move to the sword at his hip. He doesn’t remember when he started carrying a sword everywhere he went.

He’s distracted by it, for a moment, finally taking the two of them in.

Tommy’s hair is longer, there’s a scar across his jaw and even more criss crossing over his knuckles and elbows. One of the hands at his side fidgets nervously. 

There’s a burn scar running down the side of Tubbo’s face and disappearing under his shirt collar. you remembers that. He feels the guilt now, when he didn’t before. He’s wearing boots, and thick pants, and his hair is cropped short against his head. His eyes look dull as he watches Wilbur, like he’s expecting the worst, but is numb to it.

God, what did Wilbur do?

“I’m not here to… be like that again.” Wilbur takes a step forward, tries to pretend Tommy and Tubbo don’t flinch. “Listen to me, both of you. I know you don’t trust me, and you don’t have reason to, but I’m here. Not for L’Manburg, or revenge, I’m here for you.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

Tommy tilts his head, raises his eyebrows, “Pinky promise?”

Wilbur rolls his eyes but holds out his pinky like it’s the only meaningful thing and Tommy clasps it with his own and there’s that warmth again. There’s that being alive.

Almost immediately, Tommy’s defensive posture drops. He smiles, “Jesus, Will. I missed you.”

Wilbur smiles back, “I owe you a thousand apologies, gremlin.”

“You’re gonna have to break it into parts then, I don’t have the attention span.”

“That’s because you’re a toddler.”

“What— I am not!”

“Would you prefer infant?”

“I’m going to put you back in the ground myself you bastard.”

Their pinkies are still hooked. Wilbur grins. “Nah, you love me too much.”

Something flashes over Tommy’s face, and it’s twisted and ugly for half a second before it’s soft in the way Wilbur has only seen a few times. “Yeah, man. Yeah.”

Wilbur pulls their hands apart to ruffle Tommy’s hair, looking over his head at Tubbo, who’s still got a hand on his sword. When Tubbo notices he’s looking, he stiffens and takes a half a step back. 

“Hello, Wilbur,” he says with a nod. “Glad you’re back.”

There’s a burn scar that pulls at the corner of his lip when he talks. Wilbur’s gut wrenches. “Hello, Tubbo. I reckon I owe you as many apologies as Tommy, if not more.”

Tommy is looking between them, face half conflicted and half hopeful. Tubbo is watching Wilbur with a look he can’t place, like he’s studying him, or waiting for him to pounce. 

“It’s alright,” Tubbo responds after a long pause.

“No, Tubbo, it’s not. I should have trusted you back then, and at the festival—”

“It’s alright,” Tubbo repeats, more forceful. He smiles and it’s empty and Wilbur wonders how often he did that, back in Pogtopia, and Wilbur never noticed. He backs towards the door, grabbing Tommy’s hand as he passes and squeezing it once. They seem to have a silent conversation before Tubbo lets go. “I’ll leave you guys alone. You have a lot to talk about.”

He leaves, his sword still at his hip. Wilbur wishes more than anything it wasn’t there.

“He doesn’t talk about it,” Tommy says quietly, his eyes trained in the direction Tubbo left. “The festival, working under Schlatt. He doesn’t talk about any of it. He just says “oh, it’s alright”, and it’s not fucking alright.”

Wilbur lets out a breath through his nose, and nods. He drapes an arm around Tommy’s shoulder and pulls him against his side. “Hey, I’ll fix it, yeah?”

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

Tommy snorts and scrubs at his nose with the cuff of his sleeve. “That’s a lot.”

“Well,” Wilbur says, “I am incredibly talented and smart, and handsome, and so very kind, and did I mention talented—”

Shoving him, Tommy laughs, “Jesus, Wilbur.”

“No, not quite, I actually think I’m better.”

“I hate you so fucking much.”

Wilbur smiles, because he remembers that Tommy doesn’t, really. 

***

It’s not that Tubbo isn’t glad Wilbur is back. Of course he is! It’s Wilbur. Tommy’s Wilbur. He’d be selfish to be upset, and a liar if he said he didn’t spend countless nights wishing on every star, fallen or not, that Wilbur would come back and tell him how to do this all right.

But the only stars that ever seemed to be for wishing on were already taken, he supposes, because Wilbur never came.

He’s here now, but it’s too late. Tubbo sits with his feet hanging over the pit that used to be L’Manburg, and it’s too late.

“Hey, mate.” 

Tubbo jumps, hand flying to the hilt of his sword as he turns. Wilbur stands behind him, hands in his pockets. Tubbo lets out a breath and turns back to the horizon. He doesn’t take his hand off his sword.

“Hey.”

“How often do you come here?”

“I don’t know. Whenever I don’t know where else to go, I guess.”

The dirt shifts as Wilbur sits down next to him, folding his hands in his lap. “It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it? Like the end of a book.”

Sure, only when you close a book, the characters sit inside, unmoving and unfeeling, until someone opens the book at the start again.

Tubbo is still here. Ink without a page.

“I never even wanted to be president,” he says.

WIlbur shifts next to him, “Then why did you say yes?”

“Well,” Tubbo says with an empty chuckle, “when your hero asks you to take his place, you can’t exactly say no, can you?”

“I’m your hero?”

“You were,” Tubbo corrects. He shouldn’t feel smug when Wilbur winces. He does. “I’ve never cared about wars, or conflict, or power. But you built a home. I suppose I was just trying to preserve that.”

“Thank you,” Wilbur says slowly. 

Sometimes, Tubbo wishes he could just let it all go. There’s ash under his fingernails and blood in his hair that won’t go away no matter how many times he scrubs at it.

He wants to ask if Wilbur can feel the red on his own hands too, always constant. A president of a failed nation. A leader of death.

Tubbo shakes his head, “I’m sorry.”

Wilbur turns, eyebrows furrowed, “What for?”

He could laugh at that. Instead he stares at the spot where the podium used to be. 

“I let you down, didn’t I?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Sometimes, Tubbo wishes he was like Tommy. If he was Tommy he thinks he’d shout at him. He does laugh this time, hollow, as he gestures to the ruins of a country that was never his, even when he was always hers. 

“Your country is gone. Your safe place for the people you love, to grow up in and thrive in. It's a hole in the ground and it won’t ever be repaired! You gave it to me, and I know I wasn’t your first choice— I never am, but— you gave it to me, and I failed it.” Tubbo laughs again, dropping his face into his hands. “And  _ Tommy. _ You died, and I was supposed to be there for him, I was supposed to protect him like you did, and I just— I exiled him, Wilbur. I failed him, and this, and myself, and you—”

“Tubbo. Stop.”

Wilbur’s voice is stern, and Tubbo’s head snaps up to attention. Wilbur’s voice is stern in the commanding voice he used so often, but his eyes are sad. 

Slowly, Wilbur brings his hands up to cup Tubbo’s cheeks, and he doesn’t flinch away at the feel of the rough scars. His thumbs are gentle when he wipes the tears Tubbo hadn’t realized were there away. 

“Oh, Tubbo, you never failed me.” Wilbur smiles, and Tubbo watches in shock as his eyes fill, “I failed you. I stopped trusting you when all you wanted to do was help, I put the burden of the explosion on your shoulders, I didn’t save you from Technoblade.”

Tubbo flinches, and closes his eyes.

Fireworks and pain and the sky flashing with every color there is as Tubbo’s eyes closed. 

Wilbur pulls him in, against his chest, presses his lips to the top of his head. “I’m so sorry, Tubbo.”

“I didn’t know how to do it all,” Tubbo whispers, and his voice breaks. “I did it all wrong.”

“You were a better president than Schlatt, and a better president than me.”

“But I—”

“You understood it, Tubbo. You understood peace and protection. Maybe you still lost, and maybe you did some bad things, but you understood it, and you tried. I’m proud of you.”

Oh. He’s not sure if anyone’s said that to him before. 

Something unfurls in his chest. It feels a little bit like relief, and a lot like forgiveness.

They walk back towards Tommy’s house in silence, and they’re halfway there when Tubbo says, “I’m sorry that we never had a funeral.”

Wilbur stops short, looking down at him. “What?”

Tubbo shrugs. “I never— I know that you wanted one, and that you deserved one, as well. Tommy and I sat at the bench, the day after, and we told stories and laughed and sang. We… figured that was enough. I think it hurt too much to do more.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Wilbur says, like it’s easy.

“Wilbur?”

“Yes?”

“I forgive you, too.”

Wilbur laughs, and reaches up to ruffle his hair. “You were always too good to us, Tubbo. Now come on, if we stay away from Tommy any longer he’ll start burning shit.”

Tubbo groans, throwing his head back dramatically, “He’s gonna ask why I was crying.”

_ “Tommy?” _

“Yes. He has this whole “talk about your feelings” thing going on lately.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Well— okay, yeah, I suppose.”

Wilbur laughs again, and Tubbo thinks that this, this is a good thing, too.

***

“Are you absolutely sure about this?” Tubbo asks, trailing behind them, stepping purposefully int the snow so it makes clear footprints.

Wilbur hums, “It’ll be fine. Techno and I are on good terms, last I checked.”

“Okay, but Technoblade is not on good terms with Tommy or I.”

“Relax, Tubbo,” Tommy says, yanking at his heavy coat to keep it out from under his feet, “if he tries anything, I’ll just bitch slap him.”

“No one is bitch slapping anyone,” Wilbur says as Tubbo laughs. 

“It would be funny.”

“Exactly, Wilbur. Do it for the laughs.”

“You two have a fucked sense of humor.”

“Correction. Elite.”

Tommy shouts his agreement, and Wilbur rolls his eyes, fighting a smile. Tommy jogs a few steps to catch up with him, tugging on his sleeve.

“Not that I’m scared, because I’m not fucking scared of anything, but uh— Techno and I—” Tommy laughs nervously, then clears his throat. “We sort of hate each other right now, you know?”

Wilbur nods, his face falling into a stern expression. He knows, logically, that Techno isn’t on good terms with the younger boys, but he can’t imagine a world where it’s all the time. Sides in fights and even wars, sure, but daily life? 

“I’ll fix it,” he tells Tommy.

“And if that doesn’t work, you can just bitch slap him!” Tubbo calls.

Tommy laughs, hushing his friend, “Tubbo, Tubbo, not so loud. Wilbur will hear you.”

“I meant we are definitely not bitch slapping anyone!”

They have a routine, Wilbur can see it. The way they dance between emotional support and distractions, weaving comfort out of the smallest things. He’s more proud of them than he can say, and heartbroken all at once.

The two of them keep up the steady banter, resorting to throwing snow at each other’s faces when they can’t find anything to say, and Wilbur’s thoughts wander.

When he was twelve years old, he asked Techno how long they’d be brothers. He remembers the way Techno looked up from the book he was reading, careful not to wake Tommy, asleep next to him, and said, “Forever. That’s how it works.”

They were sitting in Pogtopia, next to the underground potato garden and the water system that Tubbo built, and Techno asked why he wanted to do it, destroy it all.

_ “They took it from me, so I’ll take it from them.” _

_ “What happened to you, Wilbur?” _

_ “I lost everything.” _

It was a lie. He stood up and left Techno sitting alone and he never apologized, for saying he’d lost everything when his brother was at his side through all of it.

“Hey,” Tommy says, and Wilbur blinks, looking down at him. Tommy frowns, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, sorry. Just thinking.”

“Too late for that, big man. We’re already here.”

Despite the smirk on his lips and the humor in his voice, Tommy’s hands are clenched at his sides, and he keeps glancing every direction like he’s looking for the trap.

Tubbo steps up next to Tommy and pinches his sleeve with two gloved fingers, chewing on his lip.

Wilbur takes a deep breath, and looks up at the house. It’s familiar in the way a face in a dream is, like he knows he’s seen it before, but it’s all hazy and half real. He looks up at the roof, and half expects to see the imprints of two brothers who’d sat there only a few days ago.

His eyes are drawn to the front of the house when the door swings open with a bang.

Wilbur forgets everything he’d wanted to say. Guilt and anger melts away like snow in the sun.

Standing on the porch without a cloak or shoes, his hair a wild mess around his head and his eyes sharp, is Technoblade. 

“Wilbur,” he says, and Wilbur can just barely hear it over the wind and his own heartbeat in his ears. 

“Tech,” Wilbur whispers, and then he’s running. 

When Wilbur was fourteen, Techno left home. He went to find his own place, his own path in the world. Wilbur remembers standing on the porch and watching him go. He remembers thinking he’d never see that same Techno again.

How often did Techno look at Ghostbur and see everything he lost?

His brother doesn’t seem to be bothered that he’s walking through the snow in bare feet, and when Wilbur finally gets to him, Techno yanks him into a hug so fast it knocks the wind out of his chest and makes his heart crash against his ribs.

“You’re—”

Wilbur fists the back of Techno’s shirt, his pink hair tickling the side of his face. He’s warm, despite their surroundings. Wilbur realizes once again that he is so incredibly alive.

“Yeah,” he says, voice hoarse. “I’m back. For real.”

“—the worst,” Techno mutters. His voice is hoarse as he clears his throat. “The worst, is what I was goin’ to say.”

“It’s good to see you too.”

“You were… you were missed,” Techno says quietly against his shoulder, and then he steps back, sniffing once and crossing his arms. 

Wilbur smirks at him, trying to look tough when he’s starting to shiver and anyone can see the emotion clear in his eyes. 

“You don’t have shoes on, you’ll get frostbite.”

“Back for ten seconds and you’re already in “botherin' me” mode.”

“That’s the only setting he has,” Tommy speaks up.

For a moment, there’s silence, besides the pat pat of Techno’s feet as he lifts them off the cold ground one at a time. It stays in the air like a question, and every second longer that it stretches, the knot in Wilbur’s gut pulls tighter.

Then, finally, “Must be broken. I’ll call the repairman.”

Tommy laughs, and Techno turns, half hopping back to his house, “Come on, I can’t stay out here any longer.”

The door is held open for all three of them, and Wilbur thinks that he can make this work.

***

This is weird. There’s no way this isn’t weird. Techno is sitting in his armchair, with all three of his brothers in the same room, all talking and laughing like everything is fine.

There’s a mug of tea in his hands that Wilbur made, and it smells like cinnamon and a home Techno only remembers on late, lonely nights nowadays. Tommy is sitting across from him, arguing about something with Wilbur, while Tubbo nods along, occasionally adding something just to keep the two riled up.

It’s weird.

The last time they were all together in one place was Pogtopia, and even then, Tubbo was only there on occasion, and Wilbur, while there physically, wasn’t really there at all.

The last time they were all together in one place and happy… was before any of them even came to the Dream SMP. 

While his brothers argue, Techno has spent the last half hour trying to convince himself this isn’t all a dream.

(It isn’t an outlandish thought. Techno rarely dreams, and even more rarely are they good ones, but on the occasion that it does happen, they’re always about his family.)

Wilbur is sitting in the red chair, and he’s alive, and it’s a Monday, and this isn’t a dream.

Techno isn’t sure what to do with that information.

“Techno, Techno, back me up here,” Tommy says, his hand braced on the arm of the couch like he’s getting ready to jump up and hit someone. “Fruit tea is just hot juice.”

“It’s not! They’re made completely different!”

“They’re both fruit, bitch! You just gave me warm fucking orange juice!”

Tubbo hums, “Well, with that logic, you could say any tea is just hot juice.”

“I mean, yeah, I guess you could—”

“No!” Wilbur turns with an exasperated look, “Techno.”

And Techno doesn’t like being put on the spot, and he’s still trying to figure out how the hell he got here, but also, there’s one thing ingrained in him that doesn’t waver based on pressure or weird situations.

Torturing Wilbur.

“Nah, I think Tommy has a point on this one.”

“Techno!”

“Fuck yeah, bitch! You lose!”

“Just because all of you are heathens doesn’t mean I lose!”

Tubbo pats Wilbur’s shoulder comfortingly, “It’s alright, Wilbur. Have some more hot orange juice and calm yourself.”

Tommy laughs at that, loud and sharp. Techno forgot what it was like to have that noise in his house.

Wilbur pulls a horrified face, but the corners of his lips tug up in a smile despite himself. Techno just about smiles too, when Tubbo turns, so the other side of his face is visible to Techno.

The burn scar runs ragged and red. Techno looks away.

He clears his throat, reaching forward to set his tea on the coffee table. “Not that— not that this hasn’t been… enlightenin’, and I’m happy to see you again, Wilbur, really, but uh— last I heard, Tommy and Tubbo and I aren’t exactly friends.”

Wilbur opens his mouth, and he’s got his stupid serious face on, the one he always used when he’s about to act all adulty and break up one of their fights.

It’s weird to think about, that they used to have fights that didn’t matter past a bandaid and a muttered apology.

“It’s in the past,” Tommy says, beating Wilbur to whatever speech he was about to make. “Wilbur’s back! Everything’s good now.”

Techno furrows his eyebrows, “So we’re…”

“Yeah, big man! We’re good, we’re good. Aren’t we, Tubbo?”

By the look on Tubbo’s face, he definitely does not think that they are good. Slowly, he nods, and Techno recognizes the fake smile he puts on from Pogtopia.

“We’re good, Technoblade.”

There’s a lot more to say, and to figure out, but Wilbur keeps looking at Tommy like he’s never been prouder, and Techno is steadily avoiding looking at the scars on Tubbo’s face.

Wilbur is sitting in the red chair, and he’s alive, so Techno nods.

“Cool.” 

The evening stretches on, full of more talking and socializing than Techno is used to. He spends the entire time between getting dragged into arguments or stories, trying to remember when the last time they all sat together like this was.

“He’s out,” Wilbur says with a laugh. Techno blinks, looking down at Tommy who's fallen asleep curled up on the couch with his feet on Tubbo’s lap. 

“I swear he doesn’t know what a bed is,” Techno grumbles. “Barely slept in his when he lived here.”

Tubbo, not very subtly, flinches. 

Techno tries not to wince.

“Do you have a spare room?” Wilbur asks, setting a hand on Tubbo’s shoulder.

“Uh. Yeah, upstairs. Across from mine.”

It was Tommy’s, once upon time. Wilbur nods and lifts the kid like it’s nothing, muttering something about annoying gremlin children destroying his back.

Tubbo stands to follow, pausing at the bottom of the stairs, “It was good to see you again, Techno.”

They saw each other a few days ago. Tubbo hasn’t called him Techno since before the festival.

“You too, Tubbo,” he says. Not Mr. President. 

Tubbo nods and climbs the stairs.

For a moment, Techno can feel that he’s alone. The silence like a black hole as he stares at the half empty tea cups strewn about, growing cold.

He always said he preferred being alone. 

(He lied.)

“How do you manage to look like a lost puppy in your own house?”

Techno blinks and looks up from the tea cups, huffing at Wilbur’s easy smile as he drops back into the red chair. 

“It’s a gift.”

Wilbur hums, sitting back in the armchair. He scans the room, hands still in his lap. Techno never understood how he pulled that off. Being still. 

“We have to talk about it.”

“Do we?”

“Yeah,” Wilbur says, and he sounds a little more lecturing and stern, the tone of voice Techno is used to. “Yeah, Tech. We do.”

It isn’t that Technoblade doesn’t like talking. He enjoys it, crafting clever metaphors and pulling thoughts from philosophers who have been dead for ages. It’s just that no one really listens, most of the time. You can’t talk it out in a one sided conversation. 

It’s harder with Wilbur, who grew up the responsible one, the one who kept them all in check. Vying for Phil’s attention by causing as few problems as possible, by fixing as many as he could. 

Growing up, there were few rules, but one of them was that Wilbur is always right. Even when he’s not. 

Techno exhales slowly, bracing his elbows on his knees, trying for a pose that isn’t threatening, that will maybe make Wilbur listen, for once. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

“Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“The Withers, Techno. Teaming up with Dream, blowing it all to the ninth circle of hell.”

He could sneer right now, tell Wilbur he was only following in his footsteps. 

Part of him wants a fight. The voices want a fight. 

Blood on his knuckles is easier than being vulnerable in front of someone he’s always thought of as strong. 

“L’Manburg took my brothers from me,” he says. 

Wilbur doesn’t look as strong now. 

He actually looks sick, like he might puke. Techno shifts, jerking forward like he could possibly do something to help. 

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur says. 

“Why would—“ Techno stops. Oh. L’Manburg. 

L’Manburg that killed Wilbur, that turned Tubbo into everything he was afraid of. That broke Tommy into a shell of who he was. 

L’Manburg that Wilbur built. 

_ “I’ve never blamed you, Technoblade.” _

Techno swallows, pulling at his hands. “You think we might be able to forgive each other, then?”

“I think we might be.”

“I didn’t forget,” Techno blurts. “What Dream did. To you and Tommy. It was a shaky alliance because of a common goal. I never forgot.”

Wilbur nods at him, from the red chair on a Monday with his face flushed with life. 

“I know. I never doubted you’d remember.”

Techno debates saying it for long enough that the silence has grown comfortable and even. He flicks his eyes up to Wilbur, who’s watching snow fall out the window. 

“I never doubted you,” he says finally. 

Wilbur, sitting comfortably in the red chair, smiles. 

***

The urge to run outside and shove a handful of snow in his mouth is slowly driving Wilbur insane. He can feel the cold again, instead of  _ being  _ the cold, icy wind instead of bones and flurries instead of lungs. 

Techno is reading next to him, occasionally stopping to look at him, like he’s checking if he’s still there. Wilbur’s got his knee pressed against Techno’s, so he knows that he is. 

For him, too, to remember he’s solid. 

“Do you miss him?” he asks, and Techno looks up from his book, furrowing his eyebrows. 

“Who?”

“Ghostbur.”

“Oh.” Techno shrugs, thinking it over. “I… don’t know. He was a fine guy, I guess. But he wasn’t you, not completely.”

“You missed me, then?” Wilbur asks teasingly, even though Techno has said so already. 

“Yeah,” Techno tells him again. 

The quiet tranquility of the moment is broken by a door slamming upstairs, and loud footsteps stomping down the hall. 

“Tommy, you can’t just expect me to let this go—“

“Actually, Tubbo, I’m pretty sure I fucking can.”

“You’re ignoring everything! You’re just—“

“Fuck off, man! I’m fine!”

“You’re not!”

Wilbur barely gets a glimpse of Tommy before he’s out the door, yanking it shut behind him. The window panes shake with the force of it. 

Tubbo bounds down the stairs right after, his face flushed red. He grabs Tommy’s coat off the hook by the door, and looks like he’s about to follow when he stops. 

“Is everythin’ good?” Techno asks slowly. 

With a deep breath, Tubbo turns, shoving Tommy’s coat against Wilbur’s chest. “I heard you, before. You said you’d fix it.”

Wilbur takes the coat, watching Tubbo breathe heavily with a belated sense of bewilderment. He doesn’t think Tubbo’s ever stood up to him before. 

“You’re right,” he says, and stands. “I’ll fix it.”

He follows Tommy into the cold. 

***

“You’ll freeze out here without a coat,” Wilbur says, and Tommy scowls.

He was hoping Tubbo would come after him, so he could apologize for shouting and somehow get off the subject of his own thoughts.

Of course it’s Wilbur.

“It’s fine,” he says, but Wilbur drapes his coat over his shoulders anyway.

He’s standing ankle deep in snow, looking out at the planes that never seem to end. He used to live here. He was happy, too, for the most part.

It’s fine.

“You know,” Wilbur starts, in that stupid teaching voice he has. “Just because I’m back now doesn’t mean you have to act like you’re alright.”

Maybe he doesn’t, but he wants to. He wants to be alright. He  _ should _ be.

Tommy wants to pretend that something didn’t break that night, standing on the pillar. He wants to pretend it didn’t shatter when L’Manburg was blown apart. He has Tubbo, and now Wilbur, and maybe even Techno, if they’re good enough at pretending.

“I should be alright,” he says.

Wilbur hums, and when Tommy glances back at him, he’s crouching in the snow, one of his hands out in front of him, letting the snow hit his palm as it falls from the sky. Tommy’s eyes burn at the sight of it for some reason.

“None of us  _ should _ be anything,” Wilbur responds in a quiet voice. “We just  _ are.” _

“What are we, then?”

“Idiots.” Wilbur laughs and balls his hand into a fist, opening it again and marveling at the pool of water in his hand. “Alive.”

Something about the way he says it, the way he looks at the melted snow like it’s the universe, like it in and of itself is being alive, makes Tommy’s heart jump in his throat. He looks up at the sky, and blinks as snow clings to his eyelashes, falls off his face with the tears that manage to slip from his eyes.

“I guess we are, huh.”

“Pretty great, innit?”

Tommy laughs at the shitty joke, kicking some snow in Wilbur’s direction, relishing in the way he squawks in offense. Wilbur stands, brushing the water off his hands and turning to Tommy. “So, what is it, then?”

Tommy sniffs, swipes the back of his wrist across his nose. “I almost did something stupid in exile. Tubbo thought I did do it.”

“I remember.”

“What am I supposed to do with that, Wil?” Tommy asks, ignoring the way his voice breaks. “Knowing that I can fucking— that I can get to that point?”

Wilbur sighs and wraps an arm around Tommy’s shoulders. “I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I do with it, if you like?”

Tommy nods and leans against Wilbur’s side. “Alright.”

“I’ve just gotta think about things that keep me from it. You know, reasons I didn’t move on. I stayed Ghostbur for a reason.”

“What reason?”

“You, for one.”

Tommy scoffs and shoves at Wilbur, turning away so he can’t see the tears in his eyes. Wilbur shoves him back, “Your turn. Name a reason.”

“For real?”

“Yes.”

“This is so stupid.” Tommy crosses his arms, and the compass under his shirt shifts. “Tubbo.”

“Another.”

“Seriously?”

Wilbur grins at him, “Go on.”

Tommy rolls his eyes, but gives in. “Techno, when he’s not being a bitch.”

“Another,” Wilbur repeats with a wild look.

“Ranboo is alright.”

“And?”

“The discs.”

“What else?”

“Uh… cows?”

Wilbur’s eyes are alight now, like he’s waiting for something, “Keep going, come on.”

“Bees? I don’t fucking know— fire? My house? Winning?” Tommy stops, turns away from Wilbur to look out at the snow, then back up at the sky. Oh. That’s what he’s waiting for.

“Me,” Tommy says. 

The stillness of their surroundings is broken by Wilbur’s laugh, and then Tommy’s when his hair is ruffled and he trips, snow falling over the sides of his boots and melting on his socks. It’s like up on the pillar, when he realized he didn’t want to fall.

Except now he’s realizing he wants more than that.

As the two of them calm down, Tommy rubs snow and tears out of his eyes and elbows Wilbur to get his attention, even though he already has it.

“You were a reason, Wil. Even though you weren’t there.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t.”

“It’s alright.”

“Tommy.”

With an exasperated sigh, Tommy rolls his eyes for what feels like the hundredth time that day. If he can say anything good about Wilbur being dead, it’s that his eyes weren’t so sore. He hums, “Fine. It will be alright. Happy, bitch?”

“Very.”

Tommy tilts his head, thinking about it for a moment. “You know, Wilbur, I’m happy too.”

Wilbur’s alive, and Tubbo isn’t just a regret, and Techno isn’t some far off wish, if he manages to work for it, and everything isn’t, but will be, okay.

***

Wilbur is going to eat snow. He’s having an emotional moment with his youngest brother and he really should be hugging him right now but he really, really wants to feel snow in his mouth, let it freeze his jaw and melt in his mouth.

“I can’t take it,” he says, and before Tommy can ask, he drops back down into a crouch and shoves a handful of snow into his mouth. 

“What the fuck?”

Wilbur lets it sit there, turning to hardened ice then water, and he closes his eyes, letting himself live in the sensation of what tasting feels like.

He opens his eyes and sticks out his tongue a second later. 

“Ew. Snow does not taste good.”

Tommy lets out a laugh of surprise, repeating, “What the fuck?”

Wilbur stands, frowning. “Been wanting to do that all day. Kind of anticlimactic.”

“Why was fucking eating snow on your to do list?”

“I don’t know. I remembered everything except what snow tastes like?”

“You’re so fucking wierd, Wilbur. You’re so weird.”

WIlbur opens his mouth to retaliate when snow shifts behind him. He whirls to face whoever is sneaking up on him head on, which proves to be a terrible idea.

A snowball hits him square in the nose.

“Bullseye,” a dry voice says, sounding somewhat surprised.

“Oh my god, Wilbur, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you in the face!”

“First rule of an ambush, Tubbo,” the dry voice who is definitely Techno says from behind Tommy, “never apologize.”

Neither Tommy or Wilbur have time to react before they’re being pelted with snowballs from too many directions than what seems possible by any laws of anything. 

“Tubbo!” Tommy shouts in betrayal, and the only response he gets is a loud cackle and a snowball to the back of his head.

Wilbur pulls the bottom of his coat up to shield his face. “Tommy! Fall in line! Defensive positions!”

He learns three things that day. 

One, Tubbo makes snowballs insanely fast.

Two, never, ever have a snowball fight against Tubbo and Techno, you will get humiliated and very, very wet.

And three, that hour spent getting hypothermia and beat with handfuls of snowflakes is now one of his reasons.

He also decides, while he’s sitting next to the fire in Techno’s house with Tubbo on one side of him and Tommy on the other, Techno reading out loud an arms distance away, that there’s no real sense to life. There’s no calendar checking off days and events up above in the great blue. There is not “greater purpose”, or something he has always been meant to do. 

Wilbur Soot died on a Monday. That doesn’t matter. 

What does matter, is that Wilbur Soot learned how to live on a day when he had snow melting in his hair, wind freezing his hands, and a bunched up sock in his left boot. Life, he has decided— and ultimately proven through much heartache and laughter induced stomach aches, is nonsense, and that’s what makes up the beauty of it.

“Wilbur?” Tommy asks softly, voice muffled in his shirt, half asleep. “Would it be alright if you… if you stayed? If you didn’t leave again?”

Wilbur looks out the window at the snow, already filling all the holes they’d made with their trampling feet and heavy falls. He smiles, and feels alive with it.

“Yeah, Tommy. That’d be alright.”


End file.
